


No Light

by OtterMcKilbourne (p_3a)



Series: NaNoWriMo 2015 [18]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Abduction, Broken Bones, Gen, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Mind Manipulation, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Partial Mind Control, Unconsciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:56:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3495908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p_3a/pseuds/OtterMcKilbourne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Have you had the dream again? A black goat with seven eyes that watches from the outside.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Black Goat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A black goat with seven eyes that watches from the outside._
> 
>  
> 
> Wrathion has the dream again.

Wrathion didn’t know what he normally dreamt about.

Every one of his dreams was unusual to him. Some amalgamation of whatever extraordinary occurrence he’d been working on that day, along with some features of his life so far - in itself quite unusual - and on top of that, usually something half-remembered from a time before his own conscience. Perhaps it was simply his own state of being in constant awe and amazement at the world around him, but he didn’t think he could pin down a _normal_ dream, in order to contrast with an _abnormal_ one.

Even so…

This dream was abnormal.

He’d had nightmares before, sure. He’d had the roof of Ravenholdt crash in and his father eat him up in one fiery mouthful. He’d had Stormwind Keep’s floor tremble, then fall away, and for his suddenly wingless form to tumble into the void. He’d been trapped in rooms where it felt like he was waiting for execution; seen universes where he was unwilling slave to those he’d like to call his friends.

But this wasn’t a nightmare, either. It wasn’t _scary_. It didn’t fill his heart with terror and leave him frantically fighting for purchase against a floor that wouldn’t move, no matter how hard he ran. It was just… abnormal.

It was a black goat.

It was always black. Blacker than whatever it was around. He dreamt he was in Stormwind Keep, and it stood out, stark against the corridor’s stonework. He dreamt he was in the Tavern, and it was silhouetted against the horizon, always clear through the mists. He dreamt he was at the Obsidian Dragonshrine and it was there, up on the rocks, blacker than all the ash and death this place could throw like a blanket over the land.

It had seven eyes.

Two in the normal place, sure. But then two beneath them. And two above. And one, in the centre, staring forwards. Whenever he locked eyes with it, he couldn’t find it in him to look away. He tried to, sure. But some combination of… fear at what might happen if he did; some sort of territorial feistiness at the idea of breaking contact first; and plain curiosity at exactly why this goat was here. Why it had seven eyes. Why it was watching him. Why it was so black.

And it was always outside.

This was more a feeling, than a concrete fact. Dreams worked like that more often than not. The goat was outside because it was outside, not necessarily because there was any wall separating them or because it was excluded somehow by something tangible. Sure, sometimes it was out in the corridor while he was in Anduin’s room; it was outside the window, impossibly, of his first-floor room in Ravenholdt. But it was _outside_ on the plains of the Badlands, too. It was _outside_ from the forests of Arak. It was _outside_ while blocking him from leaving Mason’s Folly, simply by standing on the stairs.

It wasn’t a nightmare. He wasn’t scared. He was just… uneasy. He awoke from each of these dreams with a frown on his face, and Right by his bedside, gently informing him that he’d been thrashing as if in the throes of a nightmare. That was confusing. He certainly hadn’t been. And she never let him have Dreamless Sleep potions these days, anyway; who was she to get on his back as though she was doing everything to help him? Ridiculous.

Somehow, he simply did not notice that he’d had this dream, every night, for over a month.


	2. Look Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Look around. They will all betray you. Flee screaming into the black forest._
> 
> Wrathion's Blacktalons are behaving strangely.

It started with one word.

“Flee”, said the ominous note.

Wrathion frowned, when he read it. He assumed it must be a misplaced memo, or a scrap of one, and went about his day.

But it happened again. A note in one of his Blacktalon’s handwriting. A gnome girl he’d taken in after she’d proven her skills as an assassin against her own awful aunt. And it read: “Flee to the forest.”

He confronted her about it, asked her what it meant - and she said she had no idea.

“If you’re lying to me,” he said, the silk in his voice barely concealing the bitter, “that’s grounds for dismissal, you know.”  
“I know,” she squeaked, nervous. “I’m-- I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I really don’t know how this happened.”

He sighed, heavy, and told her she was pardoned. She left. He dwelled on the matter for another half-hour, before returning to the day’s work.

The next day, it happened again.

Only, this time, it wasn’t one of his Blacktalons. It was a note from Simone at Ravenholdt, detailing some specifics of the next poison shipment she was sending his way - but at the end of it, she’d written, in what was most certainly her handwriting and her cipher:  
“ _Flee, Black Prince. Flee **screaming** into the black forest._ ”

This time, he was _livid_. Only, he couldn’t bring Simone herself in - he didn’t have jurisdiction over her, for one, and secondly she was a world away. So he made Left and Right stand there so he could shout at them, instead.

“This is just _ludicrous_.” He paced from one end of his tent to the other, then turned sharply on his heel, enough so to leave a scrape out of the dirt floor. “Absolutely absurd! The sheer level of _disrespect_ that someone would play such a joke on _me_! And to involve _Ravenholdt_ as well - why, it’s insubordination, plain as day. Left! You say you’ve no clue who’s involved?!”  
“No, Sir,” said the Orc, without a hint of humour or duplicity.  
Wrathion scowled at her. “And do I not employ you to, among other things, monitor my workforce?”  
“You do, Sir,” said Left, her facial expression altering subtly as she realised she was in trouble.

For a moment, Wrathion let it hang in the air, breathing deeply. He was quieter, when he spoke next. “Sorry. Left. I didn’t intend to implicate you.”  
“Sir.” Her acceptance of his apology was as stoic as everything else she ever did. Wrathion appreciated her professionalism.  
“I don’t understand it,” he continued. “The three of them--”  
“Three, Sir?” Right asked, tilting her head just a little.  
“Yes, three. There was another one I didn’t tell you about. I didn’t think it was important yet.”  
“Sir.”  
“Well, the three of them must have communicated with one another somehow. Yet my agent here has no easy way of contacting Simone, and I don’t even _know_ who sent the first one; one of my agents, surely, but with such a short sample it’s impossible to tell exactly which. And I certainly don’t know why they’d be trying to give me the run-around like this.”

Left and Right exchanged glances behind his back, but no words. He turned to them again and waved a hand in what he hoped was a nochalant manner. “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t happen again, anyway,” he said, with a certain manner of finality.  
“Yes, Sir,” they both said. And though they chorused it, they both seemed to mean it.

He certainly did.


	3. Little Lamb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There is a little lamb lost in dark woods._
> 
> Left and Right begin behaving in critically unusual ways.

It was while Wrathion was working on some letters that things began to get out of hand.

His paranoia most certainly did not help. He was having trouble concentrating; he’d hardly been sleeping, for sake of that wretched goat, and thoughts of the messages he’d been given. How everyone, even people he thought he could trust, was denying that they’d had any part in it. So either he couldn’t trust them after all, because they thought this sort of a practical joke was funny; or, worse…

No. He couldn’t think about it. For what felt like the fiftieth time this hour, he refocussed on his letter. It was to an agent he had working for him in Gorgrond, and--

“There’s a lamb lost in the woods,” Right suddenly said.

“I’m… sorry, what?” Wrathion turned to look at her.  
She blinked, as if clearing her head, and adjusted her stance. “Sorry, sir,” she said. “I must have passed out for a moment.”  
“No, no.” Wrathion gripped his claws into the back of his chair. “You _said_ something.”

Left was looking at her, too, wary and distrustful, and that made Wrathion feel a little better.  
Right took a breath - to the untrained eye, her face would look blank, but Wrathion knew there to be fear in there. That _didn’t_ make him feel any better. “I really didn’t, Sir,” she insisted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t say anything.”

“Then…” Wrathion was about to finish his sentence, when suddenly Left spoke up.  
“There’s a _little_ lamb lost in the deep, _dark_ woods,” she said, and the expression on her face made Wrathion want to be sick. Right recoiled, too, going for her crossbow - only for Left to blink the way Right had, apparently coming back into herself.

“...perhaps there’s an illness going around,” she said then, as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted. She looked at Right’s half-loaded crossbow, and Wrathion’s distrustful face.

They all breathed. Slowly, cautiously.

Suddenly, Wrathion waved his hands frantically at the both of them. “Out! I’m going away. And you two are staying here.” He shooed them both out of his tent, though hesitated to touch them - each moment was filled with the fear that, suddenly, they wouldn’t simply be saying things. They’d be moving, with that awful look in their eye. They’d be _reaching_ for him.

“Where are you going?” Left asked. “We’ll make plans--”  
“You’ll do no such thing!” Wrathion balled his fists by his sides, his pupils slitted. “And I don’t know where I’m going just yet, but it doesn’t matter. You’re dismissed! Go and handle my other Blacktalons. I won’t be seeing you again today.”  
“...yes, Sir.”  
“Both of you! Out!”  
“Yes Sir!”

And they both left the tent as ordered, although the both of them waited by the flap - concerned for Wrathion’s health and evidently still not seeing themselves as the threat they were.

Something about the manner in which they watched him reminded Wrathion of the black goat.


	4. The Nature of a Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What can change the nature of a man?_
> 
>  
> 
> Wrathion takes refuge with Anduin Wrynn, thinking himself safe in the presence of a discipline priest.

Wrathion had, of course, lied about not knowing where he was going.

He knew exactly where he was going - and to whom.

He landed on Anduin Wrynn’s balcony with ease, his satchel slung around his middle where, were he not approximately the size of a Gilnean bloodhound, a rider might sit. Inside it, among other things, was a cold iron box - and inside _that_ were the three bloodgems he usually wore on his outfit, to communicate with his Blacktalons. Usually, they represented security. Right now, they represented a threat.

Anduin was surprised to see Wrathion, but not displeased, if it was anything to judge by the way he grinned and - as fast as his joints would allow him - stood up from his desk and moved over to unlock the door.

“I thought you were finishing up in Draenor!” he chirped, as Wrathion walked in and shapeshifted to his humanoid form. “I’m not complaining, but what brings you all the way back here?”  
“Grave news, Anduin Wrynn. But nothing that concerns you directly.” He forced a smile. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to stay with you for a little while.”  
Anduin’s expression turned sombre, and he rest a hand easily on Wrathion’s shoulder. “You can talk to me about it if you want,” he reassured. “I’ll have a guest room arranged--”  
“That won’t be necessary,” Wrathion said, looking around Anduin’s room. “I’ll need to stay by your side.”

Anduin frowned, ever-perceptive. “Are you… _sure_ this doesn’t concern me?”  
“Very sure,” Wrathion pressed on. “In fact, it’s your non-involvement that means I’m safe here.”

Anduin was a discipline priest, Wrathion thought, as he unpacked the contents of his satchel onto the dresser that Anduin had hastily dragged out of the storage closet for him. His strength was in protecting himself and others from threats; why, for years, even as a very young child, he’d protected his father from the maddening whispers of Katrana Prestor. So he was sure he was safe, here. The fact that he and Anduin were… _involved_ with one another was simply a bonus - or, rather, recompense for the fact Wrathion wouldn’t be able to do any _real_ work here while he figured out what to do next.

While Wrathion unpacked, Anduin had gone back to his desk, working on whatever he’d been doing before Wrathion had arrived. And so when Wrathion was done, he went over to sling his arms around Anduin’s shoulders, his head perched gently alongside Anduin’s, and watch him write.

It was soothing to do so. Anduin’s quill looped over the page, the ink drying behind its tip, neat lines and cool curves dancing over the page. So absorbed was Wrathion in watching his companion write that it took him a long moment to realise that what he had written did not make sense in the context of the trade dossier he was supposed to be writing his approval of.

“ _What can change the nature of a man?_ ”

Chills went up Wrathion’s spine and he stopped cuddling Anduin, stepping back to tuck his hands behind his back instead. “What does that mean?” he asked, eyeing Anduin’s face.

But he saw none of the nauseating expression he’d seen on Left and Right’s faces, so he relaxed, just a little. Anduin frowned, seeming equally as confused. “I… I don’t know,” he said, looking at the sentence. Then he laughed weakly. “I guess I got distracted…”

“Is that something you’ve been thinking about a lot, lately?” he asked, his voice now terse for other reasons. Since their reunion after the trial of Garrosh Hellscream, Wrathion had practically been waiting for Anduin to say the only reason they were talking again was because he’d thought Wrathion could change. He’d thought he could have relaxed, by now - it had been almost a year since they reunited, and even longer still since the trial itself. Yet here was Anduin dwelling on such things.

“Not really,” Anduin said, scratching his own cheek. Wrathion couldn’t read his face for lies very well at the best of times, and now was certainly not that. “How strange…”

Wrathion didn’t feel like watching Anduin write any more - so he told Anduin he was going to read, selected a book from the other Prince’s shelf, then flopped on his bed to flick through it.

The rest of the day passed mercifully uneventfully. Anduin seemed a little irritated at Wrathion’s insistence they eat dinner alone, away from the rest of the house - Wrathion only didn’t want to risk the experience of coming down to eat alongside Varian, only for he and all the servants in the dining hall to begin spewing those awful nonsenses like his poor Blacktalons had. Not that he told Anduin any of that. The less Anduin knew, he thought, the better.

No. It wasn’t dinner, when things went horribly wrong. It wasn’t when he and Anduin were drifting off to sleep alongside one another - Wrathion feeling hazy in Stormwind’s summer humidity, but safe alongside his dear Prince. It was after that.

It was when he woke at what must be hours gone midnight, to Anduin Wrynn tying his hands.

At once, Wrathion violently wrenched his hands away from his lover’s grip, snarling and scrambling away from the bed - across the room, his back to the wall. “What are you _doing_?!” he exclaimed, and only then looked at Anduin’s face.

It was _monstrous_.

Wrathion looked desperately for some sign he was dreaming, some strange nebula in the sky, some unusually soft sensation in the sandstone at his back or the cold stone flags under his bare feet, some horrible black goat watching from outside - but he found no solace away from the twisted fiendishness that had taken Anduin’s beautiful face. He couldn’t help the scream that slipped his lips as Anduin advanced towards him, eyes all ablaze with sickly void.

He tried to scramble back, away, to open the balcony door and fly away - but it was locked, and he couldn’t remember where the key was, and now Anduin had his hands on his shoulders. His grip was impossibly strong, and Wrathion flailed at trying to get it off when Anduin spoke.

“ _Look around,_ ” he said, and his voice was… it was still his voice. That was the worst part about it. But there was some deep _malice_ that Wrathion didn’t believe Anduin could ever genuinely hold. “ _They will **all** betray you. Nobody is here to answer your screams._ ”  
“Get OFF me!” He screamed again without meaning to, shoving Anduin _hard_ in the chest, but he didn’t seem to budge. “Shut up! You were meant to be _safe_ , you _idiot_ Wrynn!”

He pushed him away _hard_ , intending to break his grip - and he did. But Anduin also stumbled and fell, and before Wrathion understood what was happening, he was still on the hard stone ground. Instantaneously, tears sprung to Wrathion’s eyes. He’d _hurt_ Anduin. He might have been mind-controlled at the time, but Wrathion had _hurt_ him, and now he wasn’t _moving_ \--

Then all at once Light sprung to Anduin’s hand, and he’d Shielded himself. Fear welled in Wrathion’s heart again and, with Anduin still prone, he frantically looked about for the keys to the balcony door - if he couldn’t see them, he was going to have to smash the glass and leave that way.

It was only when Anduin’s groggy voice called his name that he stopped.  
“Wrathion… you…”  
Wrathion cautiously looked at Anduin’s face. The glow of the shield was illuminating it, and perhaps that’s why it didn’t look so terrifying, all of a sudden. Wrathion almost feared he’d imagined the entire thing from start to finish, and when Anduin raised his hand to the back of his head and it came away bloody, he almost wanted to throw up. But he looked up at Wrathion, not with fear or anger on his face, but concern. “Are you alright..?”

Wrathion stared at him for a few moments. “You’re… you’re asking if _I’m_ alright.”  
“I’m-- I don’t want to betray you, Wrathion,” Anduin said suddenly, fear in his eyes. The Shield around him glimmered, staying strong. “I think… maybe you should tell me what’s going on.”


	5. Tear Them Down

Anduin had warded himself now. He’d stolen away into the library, taken a spellbook; cast some cantrip or other to extend the abilities of his shield spell so the mental protection would persist passively. And now he was sitting by the campfire they’d made, humming while flicking through the book he’d “borrowed” - a subtle glow about his person indicating that he was still protected. Wrathion still didn’t feel safe.

“Mm… I need another book before I can figure out what’s causing this,” Anduin eventually said, closing the one he had and gently setting it down. He looked over at Wrathion. “Sorry.”  
“It’s fine,” Wrathion lied. “We’ll go in the morning.”  
“Yeah. It’s not safe to travel back into Stormwind this late at night. Not that it’s much safer in the day, but… it’s been waiting until you’re mostly alone, right? It’s harder for most casters to control big groups of people, so there’s more chance if we go now that we’d be in danger.”

Anduin scratched his cheek, peering down the hillside they’d camped atop. They were on the foothills to the north of Stormwind, between the city and the mountain range. It was quiet enough here that they were unlikely to be disturbed by anyone; therefore, that they were unable to be easily found by whoever was after them. They’d be able to rest until morning.

\--

They didn’t get that long.  
Wrathion, ever-paranoid Wrathion, was the one who noticed something moving around outside the thin canvas of the army-issue tent they’d also, ah, “borrowed”. Part of him thought he was perhaps simply that - paranoid - and decided that he’d simply check outside of the tent flap, see that it was a fox, and try to rest once again.

He opened the tent flap.

He was greeted by a human face far closer to his own than he could ever have imagined.

He made a strangulated scream, but already the human was grabbing for him and trying to haul him out of the tent. He shapeshifted wildly, slipping their grasp once, only to have his wing seized with no concern for his wellbeing - the snap of his little wingbone was crisp in the cold night air, and the pain sickening. Another shapeshift and he tried to dart out from their grasp, but another pair of hands grabbed him just as he thought he was free.

Quickly, he was overpowered. It wasn’t just the one human. A group of almost twenty appeared to have climbed the hill, followed them up - Wrathion didn’t know how long they’d been hiding in the bushes, lurking by the trees twenty paces from camp, or how they’d managed to get so close without being heard. He didn’t know how they were so _strong_ \- a normal mortal couldn’t overpower him like this.

He tried to speak, but another incoherent noise of terror was all that left his lips as hand after hand gripped his arms and legs and hair and face and every part of him. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want _any_ of this. And even the way the dragons’ fire poured off him, rolling off his clothes and skin in a physical manifestation of his panic, didn’t deter them; they gripped him firm, even as their skin crisped and their hands burned.

They were carrying him somewhere. While he’d been struggling, they’d carried him away from the campsite. He heard Anduin cry his name, and was aware of flashes of light behind him; Anduin fighting them off, with a degree more success than Wrathion had on his own. But he was already out of reach of his spells, and they were reaching the crest of the hill.

Suddenly, they began to set him down. Their burning hands and crispy skin and awful, awful faces all turned to face someone; lowering Wrathion to the ground, but not setting him down or giving him a chance to escape from their grasps.

It was someone in robes. Someone who appeared, in the dark, to have no face. Someone who, for all Wrathion’s wisdom and experience in fighting the evils of this world, could only register to him as _wrong_. And he was being… shown… to this creature.

The creature spoke only five words; and each one induced such a shudder in Wrathion’s spine that, were he not still being held upright by the crowd, he would have fallen to his knees.

“Take him to the master.”

Wrathion would have expected cheering, or triumph; but the people, the spell-bound automatons, simply silently picked him above their heads again. Just as Wrathion tried to lift his head to see where they were taking him, a hand yanked his hair back and forced him to look into the vacant eyes of one of the individuals. And just as soon as he’d registered that he was looking at them, his consciousness was ripped from him - and he knew no more.


	6. Feast Slowly

Pain. Wrathion was in pain.

He tried to open his eyes. All he could perceive was agony; if he could see, then there was no sense to it, not through what he felt.

He let consciousness slip again. He was sure he’d regret it later. But he couldn’t.

A second heartbeat joined his own.

It chanted in a language he wished he didn’t know. He shuddered and tried to twist away, but he found himself locked in, imprisoned; entirely unable to move. He wasn’t even sure if he was breathing.

 _Like me_ , the voice said. Wait… but it was a heart. Wasn’t it? Hearts didn’t talk.

The pain spiked again, and Wrathion heard himself screaming.

\--

He didn’t know how long it was before his next streak of consciousness.

He felt the gaping maw beside him. A mouth. No… no. He forced his eyes open. He was back in his body, now; the chanting was voices, mortal voices. It wasn’t a mouth at all. It was a portal.

He was being held upright. His arms were restrained behind his back; his mouth was gagged. He felt sick just from being _near_ to that portal. His body still felt heavy and not his own; he knew he’d been drugged with something. What they wanted from him… that they’d go to such lengths to get it, Light only knew.

Ah, yes. The Holy Light. Wrathion hardly paid mind to it. It reminded him of the critical Eye of the Watchers, the Eye that had pulled him apart, caused him so much pain. But in contrast to this madness, he would take the Eye any day. He feared the Light - but he feared the Void evermore. He would wish his freedom over this, not matter the pain it caused him.  
  
And so Wrathion did something he never did: he prayed to the Light.

But moments, long moments, long, dragging moments passed; and nothing happened.

But no. Someone had to be coming for him. Someone had to care for him. Some deep-seated knowledge in his heart would not let him forget that, no matter how close he came to begging for death. Not that his mouth would have obeyed his commands, anyway. He felt it hanging open, loose and useless. Ridiculous. Absurd.

He didn’t even know if those were his thoughts, any more; or that of whatever lay beyond the portal. He supposed that was the point.

So he waited - either for his fate, or for his rescue.

-

He felt cool hands closing around his arms, and cool lips pressing against his cheek.


	7. No Light

The next time he awoke, he was in Stormwind’s infirmary. He looked over; Anduin was in the bed next to him. He had… scrapes, and horrid bruises, and… bad burns all on one side of his face, the side turned away from Wrathion. But his chest was rising and falling. He was alive.

And that meant Wrathion must have been, too.

He closed his eyes and tried to rest.

Anduin had lost so much by trying to help him, he knew. Injuries like those weren’t something you recovered from overnight, even with the assistance of magic. It might impact his appearance - something central to his career - for the rest of his life. And although Wrathion knew in retrospect that the stakes had been incredibly high - another black dragon could _not_ be allowed to fall into the clutches of the Old Gods - he couldn’t help but feel guilty.

Still. Rest.

A surge of adrenaline rushed through him as he closed his eyes, and just as soon, he found himself opening them again. What danger his body had sensed, he didn’t know; he glanced around the infirmary. Anduin was sleeping. There were no medics here; the ward was darkened, leading Wrathion to think they were probably sleeping. And he couldn’t see anything amiss. So with a frustrated frown, he settled down and closed his eyes again.

The mists of his mind closed around his consciousness, and he drifted into sleep. Mercifully, it was dreamless, if not exactly restful. He found himself creeping his eyes open with the morning sunlight and glancing around the infirmary ward again. Anduin was still asleep; but a medic was working quietly at the desk now, transcribing readings from a little Draenei device onto paper. And she wasn’t saying anything creepy. She wasn’t staring at him. She wasn’t trying to strangle him, and she wasn’t drugging him. All was well.

Wrathion turned over to go back to sleep. And as he did, just out of the corner of his eye - he caught sight of a black goat with seven eyes.


End file.
